Why the ESV is Errant in Matthew 1:7-10

          “All Scripture is breathed out by God.”  That statement is not only the introductory phrase of Second Timothy 3:16 in the English Standard Version; it is also an affirmation in the introduction of the ESV Reader’s Gospels  (in more traditional wording):  “All Scripture is inspired by God.”  At the ESVBible website, a brief essay teaches that “As the Bible is the inspired word of God, presenting us with God’s words as mediated through human language, it is likewise inerrant and infallible.”

          Evangelical theologians may therefore have good reason to wonder why the ESV New Testament promotes two errors on its first page.  I refer to the ESV’s erroneous claims that Asaph and Amos were among the kings of Judah in the ancestry of Christ.  The answer to this question involves textual variants.  

          The ESV’s preface was intended to give readers the impression that the ESV is a direct descendant of the KJV:  the ESV, the writer claims, “stands in the classic mainstream of English Bible translations,” and continues “the Tyndale-King James legacy,” and so forth.  However, those who read the section of the preface sub-titled Textual Basis and Resources will find a statement that the ESV New Testament is based on the fourth edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament and on the 27^th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece – which is another way of saying that the ESV New Testament was translated from a base-text that is very similar to the compilation produced by Westcott and Hort in 1881 – a compilation which thoroughly replaced the primarily Byzantine base-text of the KJV New Testament with primarily Alexandrian readings, resulting in over 5,000 changes.     

          In Matthew 1:7-10, there is a contest between Ασα (Asa) and Ασαφ (Asaph), and between Αμων (Amon) and Αμως (Amos).  The compilers of the UBS and NA-texts, like Hort, rejected the readings that are found in the vast majority of manuscripts (and in diverse early witnesses including Codex Washingtoniensis, Old Latin Codex Vercellensis, the Vulgate, the Sinaitic Syriac, and the Peshitta), and adopted the Alexandrian readings Ασαφ and Αμως, thus conveying errors, inasmuch as Asaph was a songwriter (the author of several psalms) and Amos was a prophet who prophesied in the time of Uzziah.  (Uzziah is mentioned in the genealogy in Matthew 1:8-9).  Neither Asaph nor Amos was an ancestor of Jesus.  

Codex K (Cyprianus) displays the Byzantine reading.
In 1:7, note the interesting proximity of Ασα
to the letters σαφ in the next line.

         It is for that very reason that Ασαφ and Αμως were preferred by the editors of the ESV’s base-text, on the premise that copyists would tend to replace difficult readings with non-problematic ones, instead of the other way around.  The preference for the more difficult reading – a text-critical canon sometimes expressed in Latin as lectio difficilior potior – initially seems to compel the adoption of Ασαφ and Αμως.  However, that impression may be reversed when additional factors are considered.

          The late Bruce Metzger, in his argument for Ασαφ, mentioned a statement from Lagrange (an earlier scholar) to the effect that inasmuch as anyone making this genealogy-list would have to consult the Old Testament, and anyone reading the Old Testament would see the kings’ correct names, “It is necessary, therefore, to suppose that Ασαφ is a very ancient [scribal] error.”  Metzger dismissed that line of reasoning via the supposition that “the evangelist may have derived material for the genealogy, not from the Old Testament directly, but from subsequent genealogical lists, in which the erroneous spelling occurred.”

          However, there is no evidence for the use of such a hypothetical genealogical list in the hands of the evangelist; meanwhile the evidence for Matthew’s familiarity with the Old Testament permeates his Gospel-account.  In addition, considering that Matthew knew the Old Testament and treated it as authoritative, which source is he more likely to have favored when they disagreed:  the Old Testament text, or some “subsequent genealogical list” (assuming that he ever had one)?  

          Metzger attempted to present Ασαφ and Αμως as if the evangelist merely had a strange way of spelling Ασα and Αμων.  Footnotes in the ESV make the same attempt.  However, on balance, the evidence that Metzger cited weakens his position.  In the Septuagint, out of the many occurrences of Asa’s name, he is almost always called Asa; the few intrusions of Ασαφατ and Ασαφ and Ασαβ are simply scribal mistakes.  As Jonathan Borland has pointed out:  “That only these few comparable examples exist out of 90 or so instances of the two names in the LXX demonstrates just what one should expect: while the vast consensus of manuscripts always distinguished the names, less than 10 percent of the time a single scribe (with the exception of 2 Chr 29:13 where 3 manuscripts vary) wrote one name for the other.” 

          Before I offer an explanation of the origin of the Alexandrian reading, it may be appropriate to point out the diverse name-spellings found in the flagship manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text in Matthew 1:1-13: 

1:2 – ﬡ (Sinaiticus) reads Ισακ instead of Ισαακ.

1:3 – B (Vaticanus) reads Ζαρε instead of Ζαρα.

1:4 – ﬡ reads Αμιναδαβ correctly the first time the name is written, but Αμιναδαμ the second time.

1:5 – B, ﬡ, and P1 read Βοες against diverse opposition favoring Βοοζ.  (Nevertheless the UBS-compilers adopted Βοες).

1:5 – B and ﬡ and some Alexandrian allies read Ιωβηδ instead of Ωβηδ.  (33: Ιωβηλ.)

1:6 – ﬡ* reads Σαλομων instead of Σολομωνα.

1:6 – B reads Ουρειου instead of Ουριου.

1:7 – ﬡ reads Αβια, Αβιας instead of Αβια, Αβια.

1:8 – B and ﬡ read Οζειαν instead of Οζιαν. 

1:9 – ﬡ reads Αχας, Αχας instead of Αχαζ, Αχαζ.

1:10-11 – B and ﬡ read Ιωσειαν, Ιωσειας instead of Ιωσιαν, Ιωσιας.

1:12-13 – B reads Σελαθιηλ instead of Σαλαθιηλ, in addition to reading γεννα instead of εγεννησεν three times.

1:13 – ﬡ* reads Αβιουτ instead of Αβιουδ.

          (Except for the readings in 1:5, these readings disagree with both the UBS/NA compilation and with the RP2005 Byzantine Text.  This shows a high level of variation in the spelling of proper names in the Alexandrian text-stream.)  

          Several Old Latin manuscripts agree with the Alexandrian text’s readings for Asaph and Amos.  While, on one hand, this gives the reading some diversity, on the other hand it may indicate that at these points the primary Alexandrian witnesses ﬡ, B, and P1 reflect an early Western intrusion. 

          In 1885, J. Rendel Harris proposed that the reading Ασαφ, Ασαφ originated as the result of a “ghastly line-errors,” that is, Ασαφ was accidentally written when a copyist’s line of sight drifted to the letters σαφ in the nearby word Ιωσαφατ.  He suggested that the same phenomenon can account for the origin of the reading Αμως, Αμως – the copyist’s line of sight straying, in this case, to the letters ωσ in the nearby word Ιωσειαν.  Harris concluded, “It can hardly be accidental that this coincidence of letters is found in the proper names.  And this simple paleographic explanation being given, is not to be shaken by an array of excellent MSS in which the archaic error may be preserved.”  (The same sort of syllable-interchange may account for ﬡ’s reading Σαλομων in verse 6, echoing the Σαλ from Σαλμων’s name in verse 5.)

          I am not persuaded by Harris’ theory; the occurrence of two such mistakes so close together seems unlikely.  However, I am also not persuaded by proponents of the idea that Matthew would risk confusing his readers by listing Asaph and Amos as kings of Judah, knowing that his readers would recognize Asaph as a well-known psalm-writer, and Amos as a well-known prophet.   

         What has happened, I suspect, is that an early Western scribe, unfamiliar with Old Testament chronology, introduced the names of Asaph and Amos as a primitive attempt to pad Jesus’ Messianic résumé, so to speak, by adding prophets among his ancestry.  The tampering of this scribe influenced the Western transmission-line represented by some Old Latin copies.  When these Western readings intersected with the Alexandrian transmission-line, they blended into a crowd of orthographic variations – that is, in some Western Old Latin copies, and in Egypt, the names of Asaph and Amos were assumed to be variant-spellings referring to Asa and Amon, and for that reason, they were not corrected.  Elsewhere, though, these readings were either never encountered, or were almost always rejected as variants which Matthew had not written and which he had been highly motivated not to write. 

          Among the passages in the ESV New Testament which its editors should revisit when preparing the next edition, Matthew 1:7-10 is near the top of the list.  Ask yourselves, ESV editors:  where is the evidence for Metzger’s theory that Matthew used a “subsequent genealogical list” instead of simply consulting the Old Testament text?  And how realistic is the theory that Matthew would take for granted that his readers would identify Asaph and Amos as kings of Judah?  Why wouldn’t Matthew – especially if one affirms that Matthew was writing under the inspiration of God –write the usual names?  The rationales which some commentators, advocating the Alexandrian readings, have attributed to Matthew, may more readily be assigned to scribes.

          Lectio difficilior potior has its limits.  However difficult it may be to picture a scribe introducing the names of Asaph and Amos into the text of Matthew 1:7-10, whether accidentally or deliberately, it is much more difficult to picture Matthew (or any first-century author familiar with the contents of the Old Testament) doing so. 

The English Standard Version (ESV) is Copyright ©2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  All rights reserved.  

Free Manuscript Downloads from the Walters Art Museum

          The Walters Art Museum, in Baltimore, Maryland, is famous for its world-class art exhibits, but its manuscript collections are also of considerable significance.   In 2004, a catalogue of the Walters Art Museum’s Greek manuscripts was prepared by Georgi R. Parpulov.  Among the 19 Greek manuscripts in the collection are six copies of the four Gospels, two copies of Acts and the Epistles, and two Gospels-lectionaries, along with some fragments.    

          Most of these manuscripts can be viewed page-by-page at the Walters Art Museum’s website.  If that had been the only contribution that the Walters Art Museum had made to the field of New Testament textual criticism, it would be sufficient to deserve high praise.  But there is more:  each of the following manuscripts can be downloaded for free as a PDF:  

W. 520, a lectionary
written in Greek uncial script.

        

Walters 520 (GA Lect 1629):  Gospels lectionary, 900’s.  PDF of W. 520.

Walters 521:  The Imperial Menologion.  PDF of W. 521.         

Walters 522 (GA 2370):  Gospels, 1000’s/1100’s.  PDF of W. 522.             

Walters 523 (GA 2369):  Gospels, 900’s (with replacement-pages).  PDF of W. 523.

Walters 524 (GA 2373):  Gospels, 900’s.  PDF of W. 524.           

Walters 525 (GA 2374):  Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, c. 1300.  PDF of W. 525.            

Walters 528 (GA 2372):  Gospels, early 1200’s.  PDF of W. 528.            

Walters 531 (GA 2375):  Gospels, c. 1150.  The Trebizond Gospels.  PDF of W. 531. 

Walters 533 (GA 1022):  Acts and Epistles, early 1100’s.  PDF of W. 533.          

Walters 535 (GA Lect 1029):  late (1594) lectionary copied by Luke the Cypriot, with many illustrations.  PDF of W. 535.

            

          Details about the contents and special features of these manuscripts can be found in the catalogue prepared by Georgi R. Parpulov.  Many more manuscripts – including the Reichenau Gospels, the Freising Gospels, and the Claricia Psalter – are at the Walters Art Museum’s website; I have not mentioned many other exquisite manuscripts, so as to encourage readers to visit the website directly and enjoy exploring it for themselves.  

W. 47 features a large illustration
of the assassination
of Thomas Becket.

          Some other Greek manuscripts are too fragile to digitize at present; these include Walters 532 (GA 1346, a Gospels manuscript from c. 1100) and Walters 529 (GA 647 and 2371), the latter of which is formatted similarly to GA 1175.  Among the fragments which consist of only one or two images, are Walters 530A (a miniature of Mark), Walters 530C (GA 2191) (with text from John 21).  Walters 526 (GA 1531, from the late 1200’s) and Walters 527 (GA 2368) are more substantial, but full digital views of these Gospels-copies are not yet available:             

          An abundance of versional manuscripts resides in the Walters Art Museum’s collection, including Walters 537, the oldest substantial Armenian Gospels-manuscript in North America.  (PDF of Walters 537.)  Other interesting non-Greek manuscripts include the following:

Walters 836, an Ethiopic Gospels from the 1300’s.  PDF of Walters 836.   

Walters 751, the Corvey Gospel Fragment (Latin, 950-975). 

Walters 592, an illustrated Arabic Gospels made in 1684.  PDF of W. 592.   

Walters 739, a Coptic fragment of Exodus (with text from chapters 21 & 23).

Walters 47, the Psalter-Hours of Brother Guimier (Latin, late 1200’s).

          Congratulations and thanks are extended to the staff of, and donors to, the Walters Art Museum for making these tremendous resources available! 

Crosspoint Church and the Ending of Mark

Last month, Logan Catoe of Crosspoint Church in Clemson, South Carolina offered an online explanation of why the elders decided to end the study of the Gospel of Mark at 16:8 instead of teaching from Mark 16:9-20.  The explanation included some problematic claims.  Here are 20 of them (in blue print), with clarifications and corrections. 

1.  If you’re reading from the ESV, NIV, NASB, HCSB, or NLT, verses 9-20 of Mark 16 are bracketed and accompanied by a note stating the earliest manuscripts do not include this final portion of the book.

● Not exactly.  The HCSB’s note only says that “Other mss omit bracketed text.”  The notes in the other versions vary, and sometimes the notes in the same version differ from one edition to another.   

2.  If you’re reading the KJV or NKJV, you will notice there are no brackets or note.  

● False.  The NKJV has a note.  It says, “Verses 9-20 are bracketed in NU-Text as not original.  They are lacking in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, although nearly all other manuscripts of Mark contain them.”  Catoe’s claim about the NKJV is flatly wrong.

Codex W.  Mark 16:9 begins in the
line next to the red arrow.

3.  The KJV and NKJV are translated from a set of Greek manuscripts dated after the 12th century.  

● That sentence makes it seem as if the manuscript-evidence for Mark 16:9-20 is anchored in the 1100’s.  In real life, however, all undamaged Greek manuscripts of Mark other than Vaticanus and Sinaiticus – over 1,600 manuscripts such as Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Washingtonianus, Codex Cyprianus, Codex Bezae, and Codex Campianus – support the inclusion of Mark 16:9-20.  In addition, over 40 patristic and versional sources from the era of the Roman Empire also support the passage.    

4.  The KJV was originally translated from Latin by John Wycliffe and published in 1611.

● The first part of that sentence is ludicrous.  Catoe needs to get a grip on the history of the text.  The translation that Wycliffe made was based on a Latin Vulgate text, in the 1300’s.

5.  In 1525-1526 William Tyndale revised the KJV using Greek manuscripts, providing the first English translation from the Greek text.  

● That claim does not correspond to reality either.  Inasmuch as the KJV was not published until 1611, it did not exist in 1525-1526, so Tyndale could not revise it.  What Tyndale did accomplish was an English translation based on a compilation of the Greek New Testament which Desiderius Erasmus had made earlier in the 1500’s.   

6.  The only Greek manuscripts available to him at that time were 12th century or newer.  These particular manuscripts included Mark 16:9-20.

Codex A.  Mark 16:9 begins
in the line next to the red arrow.

● This is another attempt by Catoe to convey that the manuscript-support for Mark 16:9-20 is from the 1100’s.  So let the reader know that Mark 16:9-20 is supported by Codices A, C, D, W, N, and many others.  Know also that the contents of this passage are cited in patristic compositions that were written before the production-dates of the earliest existing manuscripts of Mark 16, showing that the passage was present in manuscripts that were made before the production of our earliest existing manuscripts of Mark 16.

7.  Greek manuscripts dating back to the 4th century were not discovered until the 19th century.  These manuscripts are considered to be more reliable because they were transcribed much closer to the time of the biblical authors.  
 

● A reckless application of the general idea that the age of a manuscript’s material is a measure of the quality of its text would be truly disastrous.  Fortunately not even the compilers of the base-text(s) of the NIV and ESV believed that this idea should be applied mechanically; they rejected readings found in the oldest manuscripts hundreds of times. 

8.  Neither of the two most important and complete 4th century manuscripts have Mark 16:9-20; they simply end the book of Mark at 16:8.  

● The evidence involving the end of Mark in Vaticanus and Sinaiticus is not so simple at all.  Regarding Codex Vaticanus’ distinct blank space after Mark 16:8, see my analysis at this link, and for details about Codex Sinaiticus’ replacement-pages and anomalous lettering, see this link.  

9.  Additionally, neither Clement of Alexandria nor Origen — early church fathers in the 2nd and 3rd centuries — indicate any knowledge of text beyond verse 8.

● Here we encounter two problems:  first, there is a problem with what Catoe does not mention:  the testimony of Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenaeus, and the anonymous author of Epistula Apostolorum.  They all display an awareness of the contents of Mark 16:9-20 in one way or another, in the 100’s.  (Many other patristic writers who utilized the passage also go unmentioned.  This is congruent to the use of unequal unequal weights.  Does anyone at Crosspoint think that it is fair to ignore the evidence from the 100’s in this way?) 

Second, Catoe did not explain that Clement makes very few quotations from the Gospel of Mark; Clement makes no use of 12 of Mark’s 16 chapters.  It is no surprise that Clement treats Mark 16:9-20 the same way he treats almost all of the Gospel of Mark – and it is certainly not evidence that Clement’s copies of Mark ended at 16:8.  Unfortunately Catoe has molded the evidence so as to convey precisely that false impression.  Similarly, regarding Origen (if his statements in chapter 5 of Philocalia do not allude to Mark 16:15-20), his non-use of Mark 16:9-20 does not imply the absence of the passage in his manuscripts any more than his non-use of several much longer sections of the Gospel of Mark implies that they were absent in his manuscripts.  It is only by keeping the details about Clement and Origen in the shadows that Catoe can maintain the impression that they bring any sort of meaningful testimony against Mark 16:9-20.  

 

10.  The evidence reveals the older manuscripts (4th century) did not have verses 9-20 but the newer manuscripts (12th century) did.  

● That is recklessly false.  It is remarkable that although digital images of early manuscripts such as Codex A, Codex D, and Codex W can be freely accessed online, this falsehood continues to be circulated.  (And a small army of evangelical scholars has irresponsibly allowed it to spread for decades!)  All that one needs to do to expose Catoe’s false claim is to consult the patristic and versional evidence, which shows that manuscripts in the 100’s, 200’s, 300’s, 400’s, and onward contained Mark 16:9-20.  Only in transmission-lines influenced by a localized form of the text in Egypt did the text of Mark stop at the end of 16:8.  From Patrick in Ireland, to Irenaeus in Gaul, to Augustine in North Africa, to Epiphanius in Cyprus, to Aphrahat in Syria, to Eznik in Armenia, the support for these 12 verses is early, abundant, and widespread. 

My lecture in response to John MacArthur's
false claims about Mark 16:9-20:
Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

Catoe’s description of the internal evidence suggests that he strongly depended upon a sermon that John MacArthur delivered in 2011.  I have already responded to the falsehoods spread by MacArthur, but even though I personally contacted Grace To You on this subject and informed them about the falsehoods, inaccuracies, and half-truths spread by John MacArthur in that sermon, as explained in detail in my three-part response, Grace To You continues to circulate it – thus severely misinforming Catoe and many others.  (MacArthur is not entirely to blame; he used to accept Mark 16:9-20 as Scripture before being misinformed about various points by commentator William Lane.) 

11.  “Now” implies continuity with the previous subject matter, but the subject has changed from the women in verse 8 to Jesus in verse 9.

● No; the English term “Now” in Mark 16:9 is based on the simple Greek word δε, and this is completely consistent with Markan usage.

 

12.  The use of “He” in verse 9 requires an antecedent, meaning Jesus would need to be formally addressed in the previous section to maintain proper grammatical structure.

● Catoe has repeated a statement made by John MacArthur; unfortunately the statement is false.  It is not unusual for Mark to refer to Jesus without mentioning His name, even when the antecedent noun is not “Jesus.”  

13.  Jesus is only mentioned by the angel, leaving the women as the subject of the text.

● The Greek word that begins 16:9 is Αναστας, and the verb in the sentence is εφανη.  This precludes the women (plural) as the subject.  Now come on:  in this context, when you hear the sentence, “Now rising early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene,” is there any doubt about who the subject is?    

14.  There are 18 distinct Greek words used in verses 9-20 that are found nowhere else in Mark’s gospel.  

● That sounds meaningful until one is informed that Mark 15:40-16:4 (another 12-verse passage) contains even more once-used words (as Bruce Terry has shown in a readily available essay).  Why didn’t Catoe tell his readers about this?  The answer, I suspect, is that Catoe absorbed this one-sided claim from MacArthur, who, in turn, got it from the one-sided comments by Bruce Metzger.

15.  In verse 19 the term “Lord Jesus” is used, although nowhere else in the book does Mark use this term to refer to Jesus.  

● Will Catoe be questioning the authenticity of Luke 24 next?  The term “Lord Jesus” similarly appears in the Gospel of Luke only once, in 24:3.

16.  The most compelling argument to the authenticity of verses 9-20 state [sic] that the ending of Mark’s book was lost or Mark was unable to complete the book due to persecution.  This is why verses 9-20 are present in the late manuscripts.

● Again Catoe attempts to convey that only “late manuscripts” support Mark 16:9-20, so again I point out that patristic writers in the 100’s support the passage, as well as early manuscripts such as A, C, D, and W, and versional evidence such as the Gothic version (350), the Peshitta (300’s), and the Latin Vulgate (383).    

17.  Scribes, wishing to complete the book, pulled information from the other gospels or outside sources and made their own edits.  

● Such a scenario only exists in a dream-world concocted by commentators, as I explain in Authentic:  The Case for Mark 16:9-20.  A scribe wishing to create an ending based on the other Gospel-accounts would naturally finish the scene that is left hanging in verse 8, following the narrative pattern found in Matthew 28, instead of restarting the narrative by restating the day and time, and by reintroducing Mary Magdalene.   

18.  Matthew, Luke, and John each record some form of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances.  Compared to these other gospel narratives, one might conclude that Mark seems incomplete because he excludes any post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.  

● Only if one assumes that Mark intentionally stopped writing at the end of 16:8, with the phrase “for they were afraid.”  The incompleteness of such an abrupt stop is obvious not only when compared to the other Gospels, but also when considered alongside the specific predictions within the Gospel of Mark (in 14:28 and in 16:7) that Jesus will meet His disciples in Galilee. 

19.  Mark’s stated point is quite clear:  Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  

● Not when you depend heavily on Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, because Sinaiticus omits the phrase “Son of God” in Mark 1:1.  That is the primary reason why the words were not included in the text of the TNIV.

20.  The final verse says the women were “afraid.”  . . . . What an appropriate way for Mark to end his fast-paced gospel.  

● Such an ending is not even a little bit appropriate.  No matter how much Catoe, echoing MacArthur, insists that the emperor’s clothes are gorgeous, so to speak, the notion that the jarring and abrupt stoppage at 16:8 was intentional is flatly unrealistic – or, as Hort described it, “incredible.”  One could select the end of Mark 15:40, 16:4, 16:6, or 16:7 and similarly make a case that it is “the fitting ending” of the book.  But does anyone seriously entertain the idea that Mark knew Peter’s account of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances to the disciples, but declined to include it in his narrative?  Do you really think that although Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances were an integral part of Peter’s preaching (as reported in Acts 10:40-42), Mark would consider them dispensable?  And who seriously thinks that although Mark knew that the woman proceeded to report to the disciples (as Matthew 28 says), he deliberately ended his account with a sentence that allows the reader to conclude that the women never told anyone about the angel’s message?       

  

          Now allow me to step away from this analysis, and approach a related subject with a pastoral and doctrinal focus.  Crosspoint Church’s website states that the church “wholeheartedly affirms the truthfulness and trustworthiness of Scripture (inerrancy and infallibility).”  I ask:  which Scripture?  The Byzantine Text that is represented by over 85% (or more) of the manuscripts, or the Alexandrian readings that are preserved in a smattering of manuscripts?  Usually one can pick either the Alexandrian Text or the Byzantine Text and obtain the same message, but at many points in the text – the ending of Mark being an obvious example – that is not the case.  At those points, they cannot both be considered the Word of God.     

          If you really prefer the Alexandrian Text, and believe that almost all of the manuscripts of the Gospels contain hundreds of translation-impacting readings that should not be there, then don’t stop with Mark 16:9-20, brothers.  If you really prefer the manuscripts that were stored in the best weather conditions (and which for that reason are the oldest), remove the story about the adulteress in John 7:53-8:11, as well as Jesus’ plea, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and the report in Luke 22:43-44 about Jesus’ bloody sweat.  Erase John 9:38.  Add the contradiction in the Alexandrian text of Matthew 27:49 which states that Jesus was speared before He died.  Tell your flock that Mark wrote that Isaiah wrote Malachi 3:1, and that Salome was Herod’s daughter.  Adopt the text of Codex Sinaiticus and change Matthew 13:35 to include the name “Isaiah.”   

          Yes, keep going down the path to which you have been pointed by Bruce Metzger (who did not affirm inerrancy, and whose Textual Commentary ascribes an error to Matthew on its very first page), Eberhard Nestle, and Kurt Aland (to say nothing of Hort), and it requires no gift of prophecy to foresee that your doctrine of inerrancy will be significantly eroded.  Go ahead and keep trusting the compilers of the Nestle-Aland text who have inserted readings into the text that are not found in any Greek manuscripts.  See how many passages of doctrinal significance will have their force nullified by brackets and footnotes. 

The latest edition of my e-book
about Mark 16:9-20.

          If you intend to continue to rely on the Nestle-Aland/United Bible Societies compilations, then prepare to answer the Bible-readers who are going to ask, “Why do we ascribe inerrancy to a text that is so undefined?”.  And if you intend to embrace the Alexandrian Text as you have done in the case of the ending of Mark, prepare to answer the Bible-readers who are going to ask, “Why do we ascribe inerrancy to an errant text?”.  

          The leaders of Crosspoint Church seem to have made a decision to “forgo the teaching of Mark 16:9-20” based on a one-sided (and often erroneous) misrepresentation of the relevant evidence.  So I encourage you, brothers  – Ken Lewis, Jeremy Chasteen, Mark Welborn, Matt Denton, Jason Smith, Jason Finley, and Josh Jones – to reconsider your decision.  I invite you to watch my three-part video response to MacArthur, upon whose inaccurate work Catoe relied.  And consider the data in my book, Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20.  I will be glad to provide a free digital copy of it to any member of Crosspoint Church who writes to me and requests one.

Manuscript 758 and the Story About the Adulteress

          Recently at the blog of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, a writer presented minuscule 758 (from the 1300’s) as if it shows that a copyist expressed doubt about the legitimacy of the story of the adulteress by adding marks alongside the story in the margin of the manuscript.  He wrote:    

          “Some scribe (either the original one or a later scribe), upon seeing that this passage was included in John’s Gospel, put markings in the margins to denote its disputed status. However, the markings only cover John 8.3-11, leaving 7.53-8.2 unmarked.”

          If one turns to the pages in question (starting with image 318959, = page-view GA_758_0265b), one can see that the manuscript has a lectionary apparatus built into the text; i.e., lectionary-related notifications for the lector (the person who read selections from the manuscript aloud in worship-services) have been written in red within the text, in space reserved for them. 

Saint Pelagia, pictured before her conversion
(with Saint Nonnus, to the left) and after.

          Following John 7:52, there is an abbreviated note instructing the lector that when reading the lection for Pentecost, he should skip (up. kt. ts. N) from that point to the beginning of 8:12 (where, in the margin, there is an abbreviated note that means, resume here for Pentecost).  At the beginning of 8:3 there is an Αρχη symbol (written in red and embedded in the text), which means “Start here,” and on the next page – although one cannot see this using the cropped pictures at the CSNTM blog – in the upper margin (see Image 318960, = GA_758_0266a), a rubric identifies the reading For the Penitents (i.e., Saint Pelagia and the other Penitent Women), complete with the incipit-phrase to be used at the beginning of 8:3.  A Τελος (“Stop here”) symbol then appears at the end of 8:11 – to be precise, it appears after the “Again” (Παλιν) at the beginning of verse 12, because that is where a blank space had been left to add the lectionary apparatus) – to designate the end of the lection for Saint Pelagia’s Day, followed immediately by the “Resume here” symbol which told the lector where he was to resume reading on Pentecost. (This is augmented by a note meaning “Resume here for Pentecost” in the side-margin beside the same line.)

          I submit that the horizontal lines that accompany John 8:3-11 in manuscript 758 were most definitely not added by a scribe “to denote its disputed status,” as if the person who added these lines accepted John 7:53-8:2 but questioned 8:3-11.  Instead, the horizontal lines in this manuscript (and in others) alongside 8:3-11 were intended to identify the lection for Saint Pelagia’s annual feast-day (October 8), embedded within the lection for Pentecost.

A Fresh Analysis of John 7:53-8:11

$4.99
in the United States
(as of June 23, 2016).

My e-book about the pericope adulterae is now available at Amazon.

Various commentators, preachers and seminary professors have called for the removal of John 7:53-8:11 – the story about Jesus and the adulteress – to be removed from the Bible, because it is not in some important early manuscripts, and because, in some other manuscripts, it is in different locations.  In this book I offer the following:  

● A case for the genuineness of John 7:53-8:11,

● Corrections and clarifications of some well-circulated falsehoods and misinformation (answering especially some claims spread by Bruce Metzger, Dan Wallace, Bart Ehrman, David Parker, John Piper, and James White),

● An explanation of the simple scribal mechanism that elicited the loss of the passage in an early transmission-stream,

● An explanation of the influence of lection-cycles that led to the transference of the passage to other locations – including a consideration of the rarely cited evidence from Palestinian Aramaic texts.

● A refutation of the theory that the passage was a “floating” anecdote,

● A consideration of Augustine’s theory about why the passage was removed from the text, 

● A thorough review of the relevant external evidence, including not only Greek manuscripts but also versional and patristic evidence, 

● An examination of the internal evidence, and the disruption in the narrative that results when the pericope adulterae is removed, and

● Some brief notes about miscellaneous concerns which have a bearing on the question about John 7:53-8:11 (or upon which the question about John 7:53-8:11 has a bearing) in one way or another. 

I have tried to make this digital volume affordable for the typical Bible student.  (The price varies from country to country.)  Those for whom the price is prohibitively high are welcome to request a copy directly from me.  

Houghton's Latin New Testament: An Essential Resource

          Earlier this year, Hugh Houghton gave the field of New Testament textual criticism a great gift:  a definitive introduction to the transmission of the New Testament in Latin.  His recent book, The Latin New Testament:  A Guide to Its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts, is excellent.  Metzger’s 1977 description of the Old Latin and Vulgate texts (in pages 285-374 of The Early Versions of the New Testament may now be dismissed in peace, like a candle extinguished at sunrise.

          The main text of the book is conveniently divided into three parts:  History (describing the rise of the Old Latin and the Vulgate in patristic times, and their dissemination in the Middle Ages), Texts (describing the various resources and compilations of the Latin text, especially the Vulgate), and Manuscripts (with descriptions of the features often found in Latin manuscripts, and a remarkably thorough catalog of Latin manuscripts of text-critical importance.  The bibliography, appendices, and indices occupy the final third of the book.  

          Houghton’s account of the development of the Old Latin version is full of fascinating details which may cause even experienced researchers to wonder if they have given the Old Latin evidence the attention it deserves.  For example, in the course of making a case that the Old Latin witnesses of the Gospels share a common Latin ancestor, Houghton does not neglect to mention the example from Mark 9:15, which has been enlisted for this purpose for a long time:  gaudentes (rejoicing) appears in the Latin text of “all pre-Vulgate Latin manuscripts,” which seems to imply that behind them all there was a Greek text which read προσχέροντες (i.e., minus itacism, προσχαίροντες), as in Codex Bezae, rather than the usual reading προστρέχοντες (running).  This example, however, is not left to carry the case by itself; Houghton also cites readings in the majority of Old Latin copies in Luke 1:9, Luke 9:62, Luke 22:11, Matthew 27:60, and more. 

          It is still possible to believe Augustine’s statement (in De Doctrina Christiana, 2:11) that “The Latin translators cannot be counted.  For whenever, in the first ages of the faith, a Greek manuscript came into the hands of anyone who had also a little skill in both languages, he made bold to translate it forthwith.”  However, the shared anomalies in the Old Latin manuscripts – some of which imply a shared Greek base-text, or the same rendering of once-used Greek words – imply that these translators did not work in full independence; we must picture them sharing a Latin source and proceeding to adjust it in various ways.

          Houghton also makes it clear that despite Aland & Aland’s attempts to downplay Greek text-types, text-type-based categorization is very much alive in Old Latin research.  He presents 14 forms of the Latin text, ranging from the early forms used by Tertullian and the translator of Irenaeus, to the Stuttgart Vulgate text.  Some of the most prominent Latin text-types are:

● K, the text used by Cyprian,

● I, an Italian text closely resembling the Vulgate,

● A, a text used by Augustine,

● R, the text used by Lucifer of Cagliari, and

● S, a Latin text used in Spain.

          Houghton also shows that it is important not only to notice textual relationships, but also to detect shared features in the meta-text (or paratext) of Latin manuscripts:  the formatting of the text, as well as supplemental materials such as canon-tables, chapter-summaries, and even the use of different colors of ink, can contribute to important discoveries.  For example, there are 13 different forms of the capitula (chapter-summaries), and early Old Latin forms are sometimes found in later manuscripts in which the Gospels-text is Vulgate.  The most significant example of these forms of the capitula is KA Cy, which Houghton assigns to the first half of the 200’s.  Although this form of the capitula is found mainly in later manuscripts with an essentially Vulgate text, “The affiliation of the passages quoted in these lengthy summaries corresponds very closely to the text of Cyprian and VL 1” [i.e., Codex Bobiensis].  The significance of this is felt when it is observed that KA Cy describes the pericope adulterae as the sixteenth chapter of John, and thus indirectly constitutes a very early witness for the inclusion of the passage. 

          Readers of The Latin New Testament will likely gain a new insight or new information every few pages, whether the subject is a Latin manuscript, a lectionary (such as VL 32, from the 500’s), a patristic writer, or a modern-day editor.  After reading this book, it will be obvious that the Old Latin evidence is much more extensive than it was believed to be just 40 years ago.  The use of letters to represent Old Latin manuscripts (such as k for Bobiensis) is manifestly insufficient, and the Beuron system which Houghton uses throughout the book will inevitably replace it; indeed it must replace it in order to allow all relevant Latin witnesses to be coherently identified.  

VL 8 (Codex Corbeiensis) - with the
pericope adulterae (BnF Lat. 17225).

          Sixteen illustrations supplement the text (including a photo of Codex Complutensis with the Comma Johanneum), but a far greater supplement is the provision of links to digital photographs of many of the manuscripts in the catalogue in chapter 10.  This represents a real step forward, allowing readers the ability to virtually see many of the manuscripts online.  The Vetus Latina website, which Houghton maintains, helpfully supplements the book, and so does his website.  One can find there, among other things, a list of Old Latin Gospels-manuscripts (many of which have been fully digitized), Houghton’s article Latin Chapter-divisions, Capitula Lists, and the Old Latin Version of John, and his essay on the text of Luke in VL 11A, which appeared in the Festschrift for the great Roger Gryson, one of the giants, with Bonifatius Fischer, Hermann Josef Frede, and others, upon whose shoulders Houghton stands.

          It is traditional for authors to say that if they have seen further than their respected predecessors, it is because they are dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants.  Readers of Houghton’s work, however, may be justified if they adjust the axiom somewhat, recognizing that they are reading the work of a giant standing on the shoulders of other giants in a relatively obscure field that has finally been made accessible, comprehensible, and up-to-date.    

          Last but not least, let us applaud the publisher, Oxford University Press, for distributing this monumental book at a reasonable price:  Amazon offers the hardcover edition for $39.95, and the Kindle edition for $14.57.

The Latin New Testament:  A Guide to Its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts, is © H.A.G. Houghton 2016, and is published by Oxford University Press.    

The Pericope Adulterae and Some Early Manuscripts

          The Greek manuscripts which are often cited as the primary external evidence against the pericope adulterae (John 7:53-8:11 – a passage which some evangelical seminary professors and influential preachers, including John Piper, do not regard as Scripture) are Papyrus 66, Papyrus 75, À (01, Sinaiticus), B (03, Vaticanus), A (02, Alexandrinus), C (04, Ephraemi Rescriptus), L (019, Regius), N (022, Petropolitanus Purpureus), W (032, Washingtoniensis), and Δ (038, Sangallensis).  None of these manuscripts has John 7:53-8:11 between 7:52 and 8:12.  However, the testimony of some of these witnesses is significantly nuanced by additional details.

Codex Delta's blank space.
Color page-views are online.

          For example, in Codex Δ (from the 800’s), the copyist provided a clear indication of his recollection of the passage, even though it was absent from his exemplar.  After John 7:52, the copyist wrote the first seven words of 8:12, but then left the rest of the page blank, and resumed writing after leaving three additional blank lines on the following page.  Then he restarted the text of 8:12, and proceeded on from there.  Thus, while Codex Δ attests to the absence of the pericope adulterae in its exemplar, it also attests to the copyist’s memory of the presence of the passage in some other manuscript.

          Similarly, in Codex L (from the 700’s), the copyist left a long blank space between the end of John 7:52, on one page, and the beginning of 8:12, on the following page.  This blank space in Codex L includes more than an entire blank column.  In codices Δ and L, the blank space is not sufficient to include John 7:53-8:11, but the copyists’ intention to leave “memorial space,” acknowledging their awareness of the absent passage, remains obvious.  It therefore seems somewhat selective when commentators such as Metzger, Wallace, and White (among others) mention the absence of John 7:53-8:11, but fail to mention these blank spaces, of equal age, which attest to the presence of the passage in the memories of these manuscripts’ scribes.

Codex Regius' blank space.

          Before we turn to some other interesting features in these manuscripts, it should be pointed out that of the 1,476 manuscripts that contain the pericope adulterae, about 60 manuscripts have it in a location other than between John 7:52 and 8:12.  One particular group of manuscripts, which includes the important minuscules 1 and 1582, has the passage after the end of the Gospel of John, preceded by a note stating that because most manuscripts did not contain the passage, and because it was not commented upon by venerable patristic writers (such as John Chrysostom), it was moved to the end of the book, having been previously found after John 7:52 (the end of which the annotator quotes). 

          Although the minuscules that contain John 7:53-8:11 after John are not particularly early, their agreements are considered to echo an ancestor-manuscript which was produced in the 400’s.  In addition, their distinct readings tend to have an affinity with readings used by Origen, a patristic author who died in 254. 

          The transfer of John 7:53-8:11 from the usual place in chapters 7 and 8 to the end of the Gospel of John thus did not begin when these manuscripts were produced, but centuries earlier, when their shared ancestor was made.  This raises a question:  could some of the manuscripts which have been cited against the pericope adulterae, and which do not have it in chapters 7 and 8, have had it at the end of the Gospel of John? 
          In the case of Codex N (from the 500’s), there is no way to verify if it contained the pericope adulterae after the end of John or not, because the manuscript is damaged; the last extant bit of John 21 is in verse 20, and so there is no way to know if 21:25 was followed by the pericope adulterae when Codex N was in pristine condition or not.

          In Codex W (from about the year 400), the Gospels are arranged in the order Matthew-John-Luke-Mark.  Commentator Wieland Willker has noticed that between the end of John and the beginning of Luke, there is a blank page – blank on both sides.  No such similar feature exists in Codex W between Matthew and John, or between Luke and Mark.  This might be an attempt, by a copyist aware of the existence of the pericope adulterae, to provide space where it could be added.    

          In Codex A (from the early 400’s), the pages containing the text from John 6:50 to 8:52a have been lost.  Thus, we cannot see directly that in Codex A, John 7:52 was followed by 8:12; we have to rely on space-calculations.  Here, again, Willker’s commentary is very helpful:  he notes that the copyist accidentally omitted John 8:52, when his line of sight wandered too far down the page.  When this is accounted for, a reconstruction of the missing text, without John 7:53-8:11, fits the space that would have been on the absent pages, whereas if the pericope adulterae had been present, the space would not be remotely sufficient. 

Codex Alexandrinus -
The end of John,
and a blank column.

          At the end of the Gospel of John, the copyist of Codex A put the closing-title of the book at the end of the first column on the page.  The second column is completely blank.  One might argue that this is to be expected at the end of the Gospels – yet, at the end of Acts, there is no similar blank column; the column in which the book of Acts ends is followed immediately by a column in which the Epistle of James begins.  On the other hand, between the end of Philemon and the beginning of Revelation, there are two blank columns, that is, one side of the page is blank.  There is little way to discern, from this evidence alone, if the blank column at the end of John in Codex A is filler-space, or memorial-space.

          In Codex Sinaiticus (from the mid-300’s), after the Gospel of John concludes in the fourth column of a page, the next four columns are completely blank.  Once again, while it is probable that this is simply filler-space, it is not impossible that this feature represents copyists’ recollection of the presence of the pericope adulterae at the end of the Gospel of John. 

          In Codex Vaticanus (from the early 300’s), John 7:53-8:11 does not appear after 7:52, and there is no unusual blank space after the end of John (on page 1382 of the codex) – just the usual leftover space below the end of the book.  However, in the outer margin alongside that blank space after John 21:25, there is an interesting feature:  an umlaut, also known as a distigme.    Very many of these symbols appear in the margins of the New Testament books in Codex Vaticanus; researcher Philip Payne brought them to the attention of his fellow-researchers in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, and established that they were added to denote the locations of textual variants. 

          It has not been determined beyond reasonable doubt that these symbols were added in ancient times.  Payne has contended that most of the distigmai are contemporary with the production of the manuscript; Peter Head, however, has challenged this position.  My own suspicion is that these marks are all late.  However, because some scholars, including Daniel Wallace, have treated them as if they are ancient, let’s consider their possible significance in the case at hand:  the only known textual variant that would elicit the addition of a distigme in the blank space after the end of the Gospel of John is the presence of the pericope adulterae.   

          If the distigmai are as ancient as the manuscript itself, Codex Vaticanus testifies to a fourth-century copyist’s awareness of the pericope adulterae’s presence at that location in at least one manuscript older than Codex Vaticanus itself.  This would imply that the transfer of the passage to the end of John 21 was not initially due to its lack of use by Chrysostom and other patristic writers, but was caused by some other factor.

          Papyrus 75 (usually assigned a production-date in the early 200’s) is only extant in John up to 15:10, so there is no way to tell whether or not the pericope adulterae was present after the end of chapter 21.          

Papyrus 66 -
not much remains
of John 21:17ff. except
the page-number.

          Similarly, Papyrus 66 (which Robert Waltz describes as “a notably inaccurate copy”), also from the 200’s, is very fragmentary in John 21, and no text can be confidently reconstructed beyond 21:17.  Thus we cannot tell with certainty that Papyrus 66 did not contain the pericope adulterae after John 21. 

          A few things should be clear from this review of the major early witnesses for the non-inclusion of the pericope adulterae.

● First:  the evidence strongly supports the view that the text of John used in Egypt in the 200’s did not contain the passage after John 7:52.  

● Second:  codices L and Δ should be considered witnesses for non-inclusion and for inclusion.  

● Third:  the testimony of most of the major Greek manuscripts that support the non-inclusion of the pericope adulterae in chapters 7 and 8 is not nearly as clear or one-sided when they are asked to testify about the passage’s presence or absence following John 21; on this question, most of the early Greek manuscript-evidence is open to interpretation.